I read about 50 bloggers regularly and love them so much so that I emulate and even steal* ideas from them.. So when a few of them recently introduced Guest bloggers on their sites, I thought why not ask someone to write for me and my blog.. Enter Rachel Kwiatkowski.. I know I am taking a chance because of her bad girl image and also because she put a condition that I would publish her piece without scope for any editing, except for she would use “*”s wherever she thought it was not in line with my blog’s motto and agenda.. Thanks Rachel!
The Kwiatkowski Dispatch
*
Hello guys, this is Rachel, part Domestic goddess part Comic genius. That being said, I can also be a beatch and a c*nt in your ass if you get on my bad side – And I HONK, at least twice a day! But, turns out, I am also Heart’s confessed guilty pleasure! When I got her request to guest blog, honestly I wasn’t surprised. I figured she had to meet this fate because of her over-the-top melodramatic narrations of all things wrong about herself and the world. I even understood that in lieu of her increasing site stats but “progressively” dwindling comments, she has made this desperate attempt to unleash me onto her site. No pun. Well, Okay, pun (^_^) And no, I am not Asian :) =]
So, today I want to write about something that has been rubbing me on the wrong side. =-O (Ut-oh)?! Last month, I had called up my sister as soon as I booked my ticket to San Jose. I had made impromptu travel plans to fly to California to see her and my niece and nephew. I was looking forward to it, because it was going to be a surprise 16th for the young lady. And my sister made it clear that it meant a lot for her that I be there.
The next day in the afternoon, I receive an email from Natia, my lovely niece:
“auntie,
Hv u visited our syt bfr?? did u get dis tkt dun..? its soooooooooo exitn dat u r comn.. oh yaa!! LOVEEE it.. shoot was sup to call u!!!!!!! tdy will call surely!
abt fotos, wow lolzzzzzz.. ken lks cute wid his :-#, doesnt he.. (Rolling ma eyes) or its atlst betr dan mies :P his examz r over………………………..
btw y u makin dis trip..????? lolzzzzzzzzz.. i tnk i knw.. :)))))) bwn u n me, ma bday is the reason, right?!?!?!?! cant wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! get here asap..
l8r”
My first reaction, what the f*ck is this girl talking about..???? Is this some kind of a secret mission code message that fell off an alien ship and reached me by mistake.. ?? A few hours of research later and after putting a name to this screwed up language, I finally had a name for it and for myself.. It was Textese or SMS language and that I was now the Textese Hater™! At that point, I dreaded going to CA, after all, how was I to talk to them and carry on a decent conversation if they spoke to each other and me in shortcuts?? With those thoughts, I proceeded to pack for the trip and hopped onto the plane..
To my relief the visit wasn’t that bad at all.. It was not weird at all in the sense that I did not come across teenagers in the tens talking in abbreviations and confusing SMS dialects.. Apart for some indigestible grammatical horrors, the conversations were not so out of whack for me.. And the party was uneventful except for the big grin on the 16 year old – the same grin my mother would call out as the “fake” smile while clicking pictures of us as children..
After getting back; I wrote to her, trying to put some things into perspective:
“JeezLoueez, where do I start Natia?! First of all Happy birthday!! smiling.. :P RoFL……:) :P :P :P hahahhaahhahhahhhahaha…………. ::DDDDDDDDDDDDD………… I want to tell you something that has been bothering me.. I was :-& (tongue tied) after seeing your email last week.. We have known you since you were a ~:0 (baby) and the email actually came as a shock to me.. IMHO, I think FaceBook has had too much of an influence on you.. Please use your cell phone that momma gave you diligently.. Know your words and spellings.. You are our O*-) (angel) and we want you to excel in your studies.. Please do this for yourself and your mother.. I am :-< (super sad) and worried that the spellings might affect you academically and hurt your score in tests.. The world of Textese is fascinating, but it has its limitations.. Don’t get carried away.. Ken will soon follow in his sister’s “word” steps and you need to provide him a great learning curve to begin with..
Luv and (((H))),
Ur %-( (confused) auntie..”
I was sure that would send a great message across to her.. And so I waited patiently for my worries to be put out.. At 3am, Pacific time, almost 20 hours after I wrote to her, I get a reply which read:
“lmfao tats what i m tryin to do, luv txtin (: i am learnin and practisin evry day..
i m gld u joyed aunty! hws ur flgt???<3
glad u cud come for my b’day, was funnnnn… :)))
yaya i gt d j/k…… comon don’t wrry………… hehehe….kids kids kids ;O ;O
bwahahahaHA, i got lot’s of blups.. that’s hysterical!!!!!!!!! n doz flowern bouquet u gv me is kewl….
by d way thx for b4 comment abt spellings.. :lol:
a @-}— for you auntie…….. ttyl.. muwah………….. ;) ;) :*”
And……..
Upon reading, I proceeded to have a Person 1.0*** panic attack..
*
Greek and Latin @ FailBook
What is wrong with people these days?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think they need to be shaken up a little bit: This particular quote rattled me up!
Source: GenerationWhy? by Zadie Smith:
…...I’ve noticed—and been ashamed of noticing—that when a teenager is murdered, at least in Britain, her Facebook wall will often fill with messages that seem to not quite comprehend the gravity of what has occurred. You know the type of thing: “Sorry babes! Missin’ you!!! Hopin’ u iz with the Angles. I remember the jokes we used to have LOL! PEACE XXXXX”…..
Ahhh, writing this feels like having a good bowel movement..! God, I feel much better.
What’s Your Reaction? And if you want me back on Heart’s site, please let us know how you felt!
=-O “Uh-oh”;
:*) “Drunk smile”;
:-@ “Scream”;
;-) “Winking smile”;
O.o “Confused”;
@@ “Rolling your eyes”;
:-! “Foot in mouth”;
:@ “What???”;
|-O “Yawning”
*
Annoyance with Literally @ Fudge That Sugar
*
*steal: and always give them credit, to be assured a 100%
*** Person 1.0: According to The Social Network, a person who doesn’t consider himself savvy with FaceBook..
Person 2.0: According to The Social Network, a Generation FaceBook person..
* * *
About The Article Author:
Our mission with FutureSTRONG Academy – to grow children who respect themselves, their time and their capabilities in a world where distractions are just a click or a swipe away.
I see myself as an advocate for bringing social, emotional and character development to families, schools and communities. I never want to let this idea out of my sight – Our children are not just GPAs. I’m a Writer and a Certified Master Coach in NLP and CBT. Until 2017, I was also a Big Data Scientist. In December of 2044, I hope to win the Nobel. Namasté.
Write to me or call me. Tell me what support from me looks like.
Rachana Nadella-Somayajula,
Program Director & Essential Life Skills Coach for Kids and Busy Parents
=-O O.o I started w Twitter recently! r u girlz sayin I could catch the teen virus there too or I need 2 b on Facebook 4 that? I’d love to shake ~20 yrs off my back ;-) Rachel, can u help me improve my Textese? lol …
My first reaction to reading this was LOL … then ROFL … then after wiping few laughing tears off my nose I couldn’t stop thinking “wow, these girls are having great fun with this piece” ;-)
Great idea to invite Rachel on your blog Rachana! This is a great example of using blogging to engage with people in meaningful interactions I was longing for in my last article ;-) Are you open for some writing for free? Now that Rachel can handle your blog! ;-)
Cheers,
Kima
Thanks Kima, I can do FREE but Rachel manages her economics differently.. So in keeping with her demands of paying her in Canadian currency only, I too might have to start working for a fee! But, nonetheless, she will be thrilled by your feedback! Also, I was not sure if I could give her admin privileges for comment moderation because of her ability to throw ‘F’ bombs at the slightest aggravation. On another note, I am not so surprised at her popularity.. After all, she comes with a huge research background of humor and the grossness behind it.. !
LOL LOL After reading and being scared by this latest example of textese, my fondness for celfons diminished more. You fit in here Rachel since what Heart writes about mostly dwells more on the serious side (like me). Humor always refreshes.
@Heart -you don’t have to ping me about your latest posts. My mail subscription to your posts is working lol. I just failed to comment on your post about hunger but I read it. And I assure you that I’ll read all coming ones.
Thanks PochP, it is great to hear such feedback! It took a lot of convincing for me to bring her on board, but I am glad I did..!
Also, isn’t it illegal to send track-backs to notify of new messages, so no.. no, it wasn’t an attempt to bring you to my blog.. :D I personally added the foot note about the “National FaceBook Unfriend Day” because I read it first on your blog and thought it would go with the flow of her piece..
Thanks for your readership!
Rachana.
LMAO! Great way to start the day….Thanks! :)
Thanks for the visit Idiot!! I am glad I got you to crack under Rachel’s influence.. I am grateful for that and I wonder now, if I should follow suit – adapt a funnier approach to life myself.. :))
It was great meeting you and I appreciate your visit! Now, take care of that foot!!
;)
I literally died from laughing. ;-)
Hello, hello, thanks for dying not so literally, Mr. Phoenix ;) Rachel will be thrilled to see your comment, because, Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed!!
Tomorrow will be a better day, you will say, but meanwhile thrive in the limelight!!! ;) There is a chance every third person on the Blogosphere will be reading you today :))
Great Post! I am so glad I don’t know this language! I remember when I had to ask my nephew what LOL meant. How embarassing! Thumbs up for Rachel!!!!
Leslie, embarrassed?! Ha ha, shall I tell you something, I was for a while embarrassed to ask anyone what the heck the word “kewl” meant.. And worse, that was part of the office lingo!! And that was also before I knew about the existence of the Urban Dictionary.. !!! Gosh, those were the days, before tools like these were invented to play catch up with Generation Z.. :D My dad learnt a lot of computer ‘skills’ from me, and I am sure I should be ready to learn some new piece of technological junk that will come our way in the future from kiddos.. ;)
I will ask Rachel to note the appreciation factor, THANK you!
Okay, I had to look that up – kewl, that is!
I hate that word so much, I can’t begin to tell you :))
1. What are we gaining by changing the spelling? Exactly 4 letters in each of them!! I am :@ing (screaming!)
2. Is it because it is cool to use textese, we want to be ‘kewl’??
Uggh, ahem, Rachel took over for a second!
I’ll never forget the first time my children came home and said, “No, duh!” After I found out that it was part of the speech, EVERYWHERE!, I knew I had crossed over into the “older” generation.
Ha ha!
Ya know the sad part, I understood what her/your niece said the first time I read it, hahaha but with my age it’s not surprising, it’s more mandatory to know what it means.
That whole Facebook post was F’n FUNNY!!! How the F can you even say those words, we all have dumb thoughts once in a while, but we for the most part have the ability to filter that nonsense from leaving our mouth.
The thing about teenagers dying and getting these fake sympathy posts on their wall is pretty sad, those are like words you put into someones yearbook and only knew them from the class, screw the generation that’s coming up after me, heartless and too stupid to realize, for the most part.
Great post, glad you two are working together, it’s a good combination of gentleness and insanity, haha kidding.
Good luck to you both, can’t wait to here more from both of you.
Mr. Mojo Risin
So you think Rachel will fit here..?! Hmmmm, well OK, thanks! I will let her know.. People don’t seem to mind that we would be sharing the ‘screen presence’.. But, that’s life.. ! However, I don’t know if you want to see us both having a conversation here on this site.. We have had some pretty disturbing topics on our minds.. ;)
Thanks Mojo, as you say, always a pleasure!
Rachana.
hahaha, a conversation between you two would be great, and I’m sure by disturbing you mean awesome, right?
Well, get as awesome as you want, hahaha.
Glad to be here, wish me luck this next month, closing this Fall semester with some big Finals coming up.
Peace,
Mr. Mojo Risin
Good luck Mojo!!! You will do your very best, I know that ;)
Thanks for checking in, inspite of being busy!!!
love the cartoon,
thoughtful post,
best wishes for all kids who do exams.
Thanks Jingle for dropping by! Yes, agree, while the tone of the author/post was sarcastic, I think the bottom line that she was trying to put across was to definitely wish all the kids well!!
Thanks, you are a sweet ‘jingle’ ;)
Rachana.
Okay, clever post Rachel.
Rachana, I have to look up LMAO and stuff like that. I am just so way behind!
I’ve had guest posts and do re-posts. I think it’s a nice way to share what we like and to help get more audience for people and ideas that deserve it. Kudos for doing that here, Rachana.
Thanks Jamie, I have taken notes from you a lot of times and continue to do so!! And this might also just be one of them! Thanks, every day, I look up the ‘interpretation’ of one smiley on an average.. And unlike the English words, they don’t have a standard dictionary.. YET!!
:)
Wow! Those are typos not textese! Sorry …
Surprisingly, you are still awesome!! ;)
You noticed customer support-service provided by these major Corporations via twitter these days?
We’ve got ur details and techs are reviewing! will follow up w/u to provide more updates asap!
Whoa… let me get a tech to check into this 4 u. Plz go to http: to provide your contact info & details. Thanx
ok – plz get me ur details here (acct info, etc) and I’ll have a tech ck into it!
Yikes – What makes you say that & what can I do to help?
eek! I can have a tech follow up and look into this. Plz send ur details here.
ok- so are u all fixed up? or did u still need some hlp?
Welcome to customer service 2010 style.
Steve, thanks for writing.. It is a brilliant comment, because I was feeling hopeless about our kids and their English language future when I write to WordPress or Google and get such techie customer service responses!! And now I realize I am not alone.. ! “Yikes..” “Eek!”.. Crazy! It is OMG ROFL silly! Agreed that we are supposed to be kewl and adapt ourselves to the ways of Gen FB, but, definitely not at the cost of sweet sounding real words.. !
Eager to see what you have next on your mind after closing the chapter on FB, Chief ;)
OMG LOL! You have textese too there? I thought we only have it here in Indonesia. OMG I think I’m gonna shoot myself the next time one of my students text me/tweet me with that kind of writing-style. But thank goodness that it seems your niece hasn’t reach the level where whe will combine alphabets & numbers into one word, for example : “6ood m0rn1ng p3opLe! I hoP3 y0u enJoY youR w33kend!” :lol: :D
Nah, I wouldn’t shoot myself, but shoot them, I do!! And I miss and hit my own foot instead almost always.. ! Thanks, I am glad that you liked the post.. and great input, I had no idea that textese also involves, numbers and letters to get mixed up! So, it is just not a phenomenon restricted to password creations!! Sad, truly sad.. Reminds me of when comedians like Wanda Sykes says that people have “?” in the spellings of their names and Russell Peters says, there is an “!” in some names.. However, when they talk about such things, it is strangely funny!! ;)
Congratulations on your new English translation blog, hope to read some soon!
Phew, thanks for the education, Rachel, and Rachana! I think I’ll bookmark this post for future reference…in light of my terribly limited grasp of textese :-D
Naomi, I think we are all there with you..! Thanks to this ever changing ‘language’, there is no ready access to a Standard dictionary and I am reading that the symbols change with Culture and location.. Wikipedia says, “The symbol :) is instead written as =) in Scandinavia because the keys for = and ) are placed right beside each other on the keyboards.” Go figure.. ;)
I am waiting to see the next level of textese :-):-)
Ahem, turns out it took her a week’s worth of time to come up with this.. ;) So, I will get her to poke around further to get you more amusing reads. I am glad it put two big smiles on you FonZ. Appreciate your visit!